This invention relates to a guide alignment device, and more particularly but not by way of limitation, to a guide alignment device used for measuring misalignment of one or more guides used in vertical and incline shafts in mining operations, elevator shafts and other similar operations.
Heretofore, different type of guides for skips, cages, elevators and the like have been installed and aligned using plumb lines, surveying instruments and other types of complex equipment. Also, this type of equipment is used periodically for correcting misalignment. The use of this equipment is time consuming and does not provide the necessary information for quickly determining tilt angles from the vertical of a reference guide nor the alignment of the additional guides in relationship to the reference guide. Further, there have been no devices for providing specifications for tolerance of misalignment as well as direction of misalignment. This type of information would help reduce resonance and impact and improve the speed, the smoothness of ride and reduce maintenance as the skip or elevator is raised and lowered.
In the past the railroad industry has done a great deal or work in the measurement of alignment of horizontal rails. Railroad track has been classified in a range from one to six. The maximum allowable operating speed being ten miles per hour for freight and fifteen miles per hour for passenger trains on a Class 1 track. For Class 6 track a maximum speed of one hundred ten miles per hour may be maintained. Railroad track surveying methods and apparatus are described in the following U.S. Patents. They are U.S. Pat. No. 3,503,132 to Fisher, U.S. Pat. No. 3,643,503 to Plasser et al, U.S. Pat. No. 3,735,495 to Plasser et al, U.S. Pat. No. 3,828,440 to Plasser el al, U.S. Pat. No. 3,835,546 to Jaquet, U.S. Pat. No. 3,869,805 to Dieringer and U.S. Pat. No. 3,990,154 to Theurer el al. None of these prior art patents disclose a guide alignment device for continuously measuring, recording and plotting the amount of misalignment of one or more guides used in a vertical or an inclined shaft. Further, none of the prior art patents discuss obtaining measurements in local and global cartesian coordinate systems, wherein one face of a reference guide is used in orienting the system. Further, there is no disclosure in the prior art of using two orthogonal inclinometers or other gravity sensing devices that use gravity as a vertical reference.